MSTed: Return of the Native, Ch. 3, Part 4

[Jess Nevins]

Mike: I think what would _really_ please the Lord on this wedding
night is droit de seigneur.
Tom: Uh, Mike, the proper phrase is jus primae noctis, and
according to most reputable historians it never happened. In fact,
there--
Crow: Shut up, Tom.

What's the good of Thomasin's cousin Clym a-coming home after the
deed's done?

Tom: Sloppy seconds?

He should have come afore, if so be he wanted to stop it, and marry her
himself."

"Perhaps he's coming to bide with his mother a little time, as she must
feel
lonely now the maid's gone."

Crow (woman's voice): Why, Oedipus, what brings you by?

"Now, 'tis very odd, but I never feel lonely--no, not at all,"

Mike (Cantle): Not me! No! Not me, no sir!

said Grandfer Cantle. "I am as brave in the nighttime as

Tom: Don Knotts, I bet.

a' admiral!"

The bonfire was by this time beginning to sink low, for

Crow: The farmers had been demonstrating that you don't buy
grog, you only rent it.

the fuel had not been of that substantial sort which can support a blaze
long. Most of the other fires within the wide horizon were also
dwindling
weak. Attentive observation of their brightness, colour, and length of
existence would have revealed the quality of the material burnt, and
through that, to some extent the natural produce of the district in
which
each bonfire was situate.

Mike: I DON'T CARE, HARDY!

The clear, kingly effulgence that had characterized the majority
expressed a
heath and furze country like their own, which in one direction extended
an
unlimited number of miles;

Tom: Or for 90 days, whichever comes first.

the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed
the
lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from arable
land.
The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes like Planets--

Crow: What?

signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and stout
billets.
Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare,

Mike: Wood usually being eaten in those parts.

and though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes,
now began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great
ones had perished, but these remained.

Tom: Just like today's NBA, huh?

They occupied the remotest visible positions--sky-backed summits rising
out of rich coppice and plantation districts to the north, where the
soil was
different, and heath foreign and strange.

Crow: Do you either of you have some cyanide handy? Enough for,
say, an overdose?

Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining
throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little
window
in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding its
actual
smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.

Tom: Now, if something infinitely transcends something else, it
perforce becomes infinte in comparison, which means that, at the very
least,
Egdon Heath should have been one big cinder.
Crow: Oh, *thank* you, Mr. Safire.

This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time;

Crow: Eyes being rare in those parts.

and when their own fire had become sunken and dim

Mike (English accent): Which they called dim on account it of it
being dim.

it attracted more; some even of the wood fires more recently lighted had
reached their decline, but no change was perceptible here.

Tom: Is it fair to call Hardy the William Shatner of English
literature?

"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway.

Crow: With dialogue this sparkling, it's no wonder _Moonlighting_
went off the air.

"Seemingly. I can see a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and
good must be said of that fire, surely."

Mike (English voice) `tis an EEEVVVILLLL fire!

"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.

Tom: None of the kids can afford glass houses, y'see.

"And so can I!" said Grandfer Cantle.

"No, no, you can't, my sonnies. That fire is not much

Crow (Scottish voice): A man as a....blancmange?

less than a mile off, for all that 'a seems so near."

"'Tis in the heath, but no furze," said the turf-cutter.

Mike: And here I thought it wasn't the heath, it was the humidity.

"'Tis cleft-wood, that's what 'tis," said Timothy Fairway.

Tom: Fairway knows timber. He has become one acquainted with
the timber.

"Nothing would burn like that except clean timber.

Crow: And Joan of Arc.

And 'tis on the knap afore the old captain's house at Mistover.

Mike: Marion Zimmer Bradley novels - NOOOO!

Such a queer mortal as that man is!

Tom (Ed McMahon voice): Merv Griffin - yes!

To have a little fire inside your own bank and ditch, that nobody else
may
enjoy it or come anigh it!

Crow (British voice): Is the British way!

And what a zany an old chap must be, to light a bonfire when there's no
youngsters

Mike: Oh, yeah. *Really* zany, alright.

to please."

"Cap'n Vye has been for a long walk today, and is quite tired out,"

Tom: What, is he a puppy?

said Grandfer Cantle, "so 'tisn't likely to be he."

"And he would hardly afford good fuel like that," said the wide woman.

Crow (woman's voice): Usually he just throws his grandkids on the
fire.

"Then it must be his granddaughter," said Fairway. "Not that a body of
her
age can want a fire much."

"She is very strange in her ways, living up there by herself, and such
things
please her," said Susan.

"She's a well-favoured maid enough," said Humphrey the furze-cutter,
"especially when she's got one of her dandy gowns on."

Mike: Or off, as the case may be.

"That's true," said Fairway. "Well, let her bonfire burn an't will.
Ours is
well-nigh out by the look o't."

"How dark 'tis now the fire's gone down!" said Christian Cantle,

Tom (Cantle): And look - now that the sun's gone down, it's dark
out! Why didn't someone tell me these things?

looking behind him with his hare eyes. "Don't ye think we'd better get
home-along, neighbours? The heth isn't haunted, I know; but we'd better
get home....Ah, what was that?"

"Only the wind," said the turf-cutter.

Crow (turf-cutter): From the White Castles I had for lunch.

"I don't think Fifth-of-Novembers ought to be kept up by night except in
towns. It should be by day in outstep, ill-accounted places like this!"

Mike: Gaithersburg, Maryland?

"Nonsense, Christian. Lift up your spirits like a man!

Tom: Lift up your skirts like a man? What, is this the Dennis
Rodman Story?

Susy, dear, you and I will have a jig--hey, my honey?--before
'tis quite too dark to see how well-favoured you be still,

Crow: Mike, I think you should apologize to women everywhere
on behalf of the male sex.

though so many summers have passed since your husband,
a son of a witch, snapped you up from me."

Mike (Fairway): Of course, then I met booze, and now we're very
happy - did I tell you booze and I are moving in together?

This was addressed to Susan Nunsuch; and the next circumstance of which
the beholders were conscious was a vision of the matron's broad form
whisking off towards the space whereon the fire had been kindled.

Tom (Edith Hamilton voice): Now fly, monkeys, fly!

She was lifted bodily by Mr. Fairway's arm, which had been flung round
her waist before she had become aware of his intention.

Crow: Y'see, Tailhook is actually an old tradition we got from the
British.

The site of the fire was now merely a circle of ashes flecked with red
embers and sparks, the furze having burnt completely away. Once within
the circle he whirled her round and round in a dance.

Mike: Now twirl your partner, throw her about, it's sexual
harassment, but Fairway's a lout.

She was a woman noisily constructed; in addition to her enclosing
framework of whalebone and lath, she wore pattens summer and winter, in
wet weather and in dry, to preserve her boots from wear; and when
Fairway began to jump about with her, the clicking of the pattens, the
creaking of the stays, and her screams of surprise, formed a very
audible
concert.

Tom (English voice): Hello, Egdon Heath! Rock and roll!
Crow (English voice): This pyre goes to 11.

"I'll crack thy numskull for thee, you mandy chap!" said Mrs. Nunsuch,
as
she helplessly danced round with him, her feet playing like drumsticks
among the sparks.

Crow: If Gene Krupa had met RuPaul.

"My ankles were all in a fever before, from walking through that prickly
furze, and now you must make 'em worse with these vlankers!"

Mike: Vlanker? I don't even kn--
Gypsy looms into the theater from overhead.
Gypsy: Don't.
Mike cringes.
Mike: Sorry.
Gypsy slowly withdraws.

The vagary of Timothy Fairway was infectious.

Tom: Like his mange.

The turf-cutter seized old Olly Dowden, and, somewhat more gently,
poussetted with her

Crow: Did he dart with her, too?

likewise. The young men were not slow to imitate the example of their
elders,

Mike: And they began annoying the reader, too.

and seized the maids; Grandfer Cantle and his stick jigged in the form
of a
three-legged object among the rest;

Tom: I keep wishing him into the cornfield, but nothing happens.

and in half a minute all that could be seen on Rainbarrow was a whirling
of dark shapes amid a boiling confusion of sparks, which leapt around
the
dancers as high as their waists. The chief noises were women's shrill
cries,
men's laughter, Susan's stays and pattens, Olly Dowden's "heu-heu-heu!"

Mike, Tom and Crow all laugh, Beavis & Butthead style.

and the strumming of the wind upon the furze-bushes, which formed a kind
of tune to the demoniac measure they trod. Christian alone stood aloof,
uneasily rocking himself as he murmured, "They ought not to do it--how
the vlankers do fly! 'tis tempting the Wicked one, 'tis."

Tom: And when Newt Gingrich is tempted, he always gives in.

"What was that?" said one of the lads, stopping.

"Ah--where?" said Christian, hastily closing up to the rest.

The dancers all lessened their speed.

Crow (British voice): If the dancers go below 55 jigs per hour, they
will explode.

"'Twas behind you, Christian, that I heard it--down here."

Mike (Christian): That's not my knee you're touching.

"Yes--'tis behind me!" Christian said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
bless the bed that I lie on; four angels guard--"

Tom: Gene Mauch's memorial?

"Hold your tongue. What is it?" said Fairway.

"Hoi-i-i-i!" cried a voice from the darkness.

"Halloo-o-o-o!" said Fairway.

Crow: Scooby-Doo, where are you?

"Is there any cart track up across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's, of
Blooms-End?"

Mike: No, the cart track to the Bloomsbury Group ran through
Virginia Woolf.
Tom: If Clive Bell is to be believed, _everyone_ ran through
Virginia Woolf at one time or another.
Crow: Ouch.

came to them in the same voice, as a long, slim indistinct figure
approached
the barrow.

Tom: It's the ghost of Bob Mikan!

"Ought we not to run home as hard as we can, neighbours,

Crow: You can't catch Christian, though - he's the Gingerbread
Man.

as 'tis getting late?" said Christian. "Not run away from one another,
you
know; run close together, I mean." "Scrape up a few stray locks of
furze,
and make a blaze, so that we can see who the man is," said Fairway.

Tom (panicked): It's Kayser Soze!

When the flame arose it revealed a young man in tight raiment, and red
from top to toe.

Mike: Eric Davis?

"Is there a track across here to Mis'ess Yeobright's house?" he
repeated.

"Ay--keep along the path down there."

"I mean a way two horses and a van can travel over?"

Tom (Christian): Oh, well, *pardon* me, Mister Bourgeois Pig!

"Well, yes; you can get up the vale below here with time. The track is
rough, but if you've got a light

Crow: No - he said Bud Light!

your horses may pick along wi' care. Have ye brought your cart far up,
neighbour reddleman?"

"I've left it in the bottom, about half a mile back,

Mike: This sounds like a Lassie plot.

I stepped on in front to make sure of the way, as 'tis night-time, and I
han't
been here for so long."

Tom: Well, it is a long, long way to Tipperaregdon Heath....

"Oh, well you can get up,"

Crow: Stand up for your rights?
Tom: C'mon, Crow, as British peasants they have no rights.

said Fairway. "What a turn it did give me when I saw him!"

Mike (Fairway voice): I nearly wet ‘em again.

he added to the whole group, the reddleman included. "Lord's sake, I
thought, whatever fiery mommet is this come to trouble us?

Tom: The fiery mommet of Sexual Perversity in Chicago &
American Buffalo?
Crow: No, you know - the Flaming Wallace's partner?

No slight to your looks, reddleman, for ye bain't bad-looking in the
groundwork, though the finish is queer.

Crow: Whoa.
Tom: Cottaging, English style.

My meaning is just to say how curious I felt.

Mike (Fairway): I mean, I'm not usually attracted to men, but I can
sense that you're different.

I half thought it 'twas the devil or the red ghost the boy told of."

Tom: At least he didn't bring his 3 space apes.

"It gied me a turn likewise," said Susan Nunsuch, "for I had a dream
last
night of a death's head."

Crow: Yeah, I have dreams about Milton Berle, too.

"Don't ye talk o't no more," said Christian. "If he had a handkerchief
over
his head he'd look for all the world like

Mike: That guy in _Hired_.

the Devil in the picture of the Temptation."

Tom: Now, that's just bad research. Leo Marks did the _voice_ of
the Devil in _Last Temptation_, but we never saw the devil himself.
You'd think
Hardy would have done better research than that.

"Well, thank you for telling me," said the young reddleman, smiling
faintly.
"And good night t'ye all."

He withdrew from their sight down the barrow.

"I fancy I've seen that young man's face before,"

Crow (Humphrey voice): Now, was it on a poster in the post office,
or in the Hellfire Club?

said Humphrey. "But where, or how, or what his name is, I don't know."

Mike (Bogart voice): I bet _he_ doesn't know how to whistle...

The reddleman had not been gone more than a few minutes when

Tom: The Cubs lost another game.

another person approached the partially revived bonfire. It proved to
be

Crow: Mr. Feely, with a letter for Mr. Rogers?

a well-known and respected widow of the neighbourhood, of a standing
which can only be expressed by the word genteel.

Mike: Aka, a shiksa.

Her face, encompassed by the blackness of the receding heath, showed
whitely, and with-out half-lights, like a cameo.

She was a woman of middle-age,